Police see no racism in metro attack on a Nigerian passenger

The Kyiv Police have classified as hooliganism the incident on 2 April when a Nigerian passenger travelling between Khreschatyk and Arsenalna on the Kyiv metro was beaten up. According to the Metro Police Press Officer, N. Kernytska, there are no grounds for seeing a racial motive. “The victim is Nigerian by origin but has long been a Ukrainian citizen. The guys had simply been drinking, got into an argument with him and trod on each other’s feet. The crime has been classified as hooliganism and passed in this form to the investigator”.

Ms Kernytska says that as well as the video footage already reported taken by Slava Baransky who witnessed the assault from the next carriage, there was also a member of staff of the Obolon District Police Department in the carriage who is acting as witness.

Human rights groups assert that almost all racially-motivated crimes are called hooliganism. According to Tetyana Mazur, Director of Amnesty International in Ukraine, although there are separate articles in the Criminal Code regarding racially-motivated crimes, such incidents are most often qualified as hooliganism. This leads to a situation where there is no accurate picture regarding the situation with racism. Nor do the authorities keep statistics regarding racially-motivated crimes.

Civic organizations carry out monitoring but they don’t have access to official information and it’s therefore difficult to adequately assess the situation.